Savvy Navvy vs Navionics (Boating by Garmin): which one for sailors in 2026?
Both apps will get you safely from A to B. The real question is which one matches the way you sail. This is an honest side-by-side — pricing, chart quality, routing, tides, offline use, and the verdict at the end without the affiliate-blog hedging.
The 30-second verdict
- Pick Savvy Navvy if you sail tidal waters (UK, Brittany, Channel Islands), plan multi-day passages, and value automatic route optimisation over chart depth.
- Pick Boating by Garmin (Navionics) if you sail one specific region long-term, want the best chart detail available on a phone, already own a Garmin chart plotter, or are price-sensitive.
- Many sailors run both. Navionics as the primary chart reference, Savvy Navvy as the planning brain. Total ~£75/year, still cheaper than one paper almanac plus the time saved.
At a glance
| Savvy Navvy | Boating by Garmin | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (annual) | ~£59 — single tier, global | ~£15–25 per region (cheaper if single coast) |
| Platforms | iOS, Android, Web | iOS, Android, Web, Garmin MFDs |
| Auto-routing | Yes — tide, weather, draft | Basic dock-to-dock; manual preferred |
| Chart source | Custom + open data | Navionics (industry standard) |
| Tidal streams on route | Yes — strong | Overlay only |
| Offline charts | Region downloads | Full offline, mature |
| Free trial | 7 days | 7 days |
Scored across ten dimensions
Filled dots = score out of 5. Empty dots = remainder. We weighted every category equally — adjust to taste if (say) plotter integration matters more to you than chart detail.
Clean, simplified, good for routing — less depth detail than Garmin.
Industry-standard chart data, SonarChart depth contours, community edits.
Headline feature — accounts for tides, weather, boat draft.
Manual route building, dock-to-dock auto-route added 2024 but less refined.
Best-in-class for UK and Northern Europe — calculates fair tide automatically.
Tidal data overlays exist but no route-optimisation against streams.
GRIB overlay on route with colour-coded sea state.
Marine forecast overlay, but feels bolted-on rather than integrated.
Region downloads, syncs route plans without signal.
Full offline charts have been mature for a decade.
~£59/year, one tier, all regions.
From ~£15–25/year per region — cheap if you sail one coast, expensive globally.
App-first design, fast, clean. Built in the last 5 years.
Functional but dated; legacy Navionics layout under a new skin.
Phone/tablet only. No MFD support.
Pairs with Garmin chart plotters — native sync of waypoints and routes.
Smaller user base, less crowd-sourced data.
Millions of users → community edits, SonarChart contributions, marina reviews.
If you can use Google Maps, you can use this.
Steeper — more features, more buried settings.
Aggregate, equal weighting
Within a couple of points — they are close, and the winner depends entirely on what kind of sailing you do.
When each one wins
Pick Savvy Navvy for:
- UK, Brittany, Channel Islands cruising. The tidal stream routing alone justifies the subscription. It does the tidal-atlas maths in seconds.
- Multi-day passage planning. Plug in five waypoints for a week of cruising and it will optimise departure times based on weather and tide windows.
- New cruising grounds. Going somewhere unfamiliar? The auto-route gives a defensible starting plan you can verify against the chart.
- Sailors who plan from the sofa.The web app is genuinely usable on a laptop. Plotting on a 13-inch screen is something Navionics doesn't really do well.
Pick Boating by Garmin (Navionics) for:
- Single-region sailors. If you only sail the Solent, Adriatic, or Aegean, paying ~£15–25/year for the relevant chart region is genuinely cheap.
- Garmin chart plotter owners. Native sync between phone and MFD is a real workflow win — plan on the phone, push to the plotter at the helm.
- Depth-sensitive cruising. SonarChart contours are unmatched for navigating shallow approaches, anchorages, and non-charted creeks.
- Reference-first sailors.If you treat the app as "the chart on a phone" rather than "the planning brain," Navionics is the better tool.
The honest verdict
The reviews that say "Savvy Navvy is the future, Navionics is for dinosaurs" are wrong. The reviews that say "real sailors use Navionics, Savvy Navvy is for beginners" are also wrong. They solve different problems for different users.
Savvy Navvy is a planning tool.Its strength is turning "I want to get from Plymouth to Falmouth on Saturday" into a route with the right departure time, fair tide, and wind angles accounted for. Once you are on the water and the plan is in motion, you spend less time looking at it.
Navionics is a chart. Its strength is being the thing you look at when you are actually navigating — high-resolution depth contours when you are picking your way into an anchorage, accurate channel buoys, marina detail, community-noted hazards. Planning with it is more work; navigating with it is unbeatable.
If you sail in strong tidal waters, Savvy Navvy is the bigger win — the planning value is enormous and the chart weakness is mitigated by the fact that you already know your home waters. If you sail in tideless or near-tideless waters (most of the Mediterranean), the planning advantage shrinks and Navionics becomes the better single-app choice.
The sailors who get the most out of their phone-based navigation generally run both. You can plan in Savvy Navvy on Saturday morning with a coffee, then use Navionics at the helm when you actually need to see what the seabed is doing. Total cost ~£75/year — less than one printed almanac.
FAQ
Is Boating by Garmin the same as Navionics?
Yes. Garmin acquired Navionics in 2017 and rebranded the app first to "Navionics Boating," then to "Boating by Garmin" in 2024. The charts are still the Navionics charts under the hood.
Can I trust auto-routing?
Not blindly — neither app's auto-route should be followed without a manual review. Savvy Navvy's is the more refined of the two, but both can suggest routes that take you closer to hazards than you would manually. Use auto-routing as a starting point, then check it against the chart.
Which one for RYA Day Skipper / Yachtmaster prep?
For coursework you still want paper charts and a tidal atlas — the exam is taught that way. As a real-world supplement, Savvy Navvy is arguably more educational because the tidal-stream visualisation makes the concepts click. For a deeper dive on what to study, see our free RYA practice quizzes.
What about Aqua Map, iSailor, or C-Map?
All real options. Aqua Map is excellent in the US, iSailor has a loyal following in Europe, C-Map sits inside many Raymarine ecosystems. We may add a deeper review of these — for now, Savvy Navvy and Navionics are the two most-asked-about apps in the sailing forums, which is why this page exists.
Try them yourself
Savvy Navvy
Best for: tidal waters, multi-day planning, modern UX. 7-day free trial.
Try Savvy Navvy →Boating by Garmin
Best for: chart detail, plotter integration, single-region sailors. 7-day free trial.
Try Boating by Garmin →Affiliate links — Elio may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We have no commercial relationship with either app beyond the affiliate program, and the verdict above is the same one we'd give a sailing friend over a beer.